Merrill Jeffords is SCHNEIDER WITH BREAKING NEWS... FORMER VERMONT SENATOR JIM JEFFORDS HAS DIED.THE 80 YEAR OLD DIED AT THE KNOLLWOOD MILITARY RETIREMENT COMMUNITY IN THE WASHINGTON D.C AREA. WPTZ'S STEWART LEDBETTER HAS A LOOK BACK ON JEFFRODS LIFE. Born in Rutland, Vermont, on May 11, 1934, James Merrill Jeffords is the son of the late Marion H. Jeffords and the late Olin M. Jeffords, former Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. His father's family settled in northwestern Vermont in 1794. After attending public schools in Rutland, Senator Jeffords received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1956 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1962. He served active duty with the U.S. Navy from 1956 to 1959, and retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Captain in 1990. Senator Jeffords lost his wife, Elizabeth Daley Jeffords in 2007. They have a grandson, Patton Jeffords, son of Leonard and his wife Maura, and a granddaughter, Hazel Molvak, daughter of Laura Jeffords and Jan Molvak. Jeffords served as a Vermont State Senator for Rutland County in 1967 and 1968, and held his first statewide office as Vermont Attorney General from 1969 to 1973. Senator Jeffords spent 32 years in Congress. First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974, he retired in 2006 after serving his third term as a U.S. Senator. Throughout his tenure in Congress, Senator Jeffords championed legislation to strengthen our nation's education system and increase the opportunities for individuals with disabilities. He left his fingerprints on every piece of education, job training, and disability legislation over the past quarter-century. In 1975, Senator Jeffords, as the ranking member on the subcommittee on select education, co-authored what would later be known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , which has provided equal access to education for millions of students with disabilities. Since IDEA's enactment, Senator Jeffords continued to fight for full federal funding for the law. Senator Jeffords was also a leading advocate in Congress for environmental protection. He fought to reduce industrial pollution and acid rain, and as a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he ensured the passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act. WE'LL HAVE MUCH MORE ON THE LIFE OF FORMER U-S SENATOR JIM JEFFORDS OF VERMONT STARTING TONIGHT ON WPTZ FIRST AT FIVE. FOR NOW, I'M DAVID SCHNEIDER, WPTZ NEWSCHANNEL